Old and New Methods of Initiation

Schmidt Number: S-4756

On-line since: 30th June, 2010

LECTURE FIVE

Breslau, 1
February 1922

It gives me
profound pleasure to be among our Breslau friends. We have been
through grave times which have made it all too obvious that mankind
today is in need of something which can enable further development to
take place. These catastrophic times are the consequence of a loss of
upward momentum in human evolution. But in the soil of Anthroposophy
we are tilling forces which can serve us in building up a spiritual
life. Therefore I shall not speak too much today about contemporary
events, but rather about the knowledge which human beings need,
knowledge which they must absorb into their moral impulses. A great
deal lives in our soul of which we are hardly aware. But because it
is there, and because our soul element is linked to our existence on
the earth, it is very important for our life.

What
weighs on human beings today is the discordance between what the soul
really needs and what present-day science can supply. Scientific
knowledge is very demanding, and we ought to ask ourselves what it is
that it demands of human beings. One thing it demands, for instance,
is that we should accept its view of the beginning and end of the
earth. Take the Kant-Laplace explanation of how the world began. A
glowing ball of gas was formed by chemical and mechanical forces; it
cooled, and when it was cool enough the same mechanical forces
brought about the further solidification of everything that later
became the kingdoms of plant, animal and man. And as for the future
of earthly life and existence, we are told of an end to all life
brought about by a gradual re-warming of the earth. Scientists say
that physical laws will lead to the death of the earth through
overheating. The end of the earth stretches before us like a gigantic
churchyard. Between the two extremes, of the chemical and mechanical
beginning of the world and its death by warmth at the end, lie all
our human aspirations and ideals, all the moral purposes we have ever
had or are going to have. The question is, why do such ideals and
aspirations arise by chemical and physical means in the first place,
if all they are destined for is to perish in the general death by
overheating? Of course we can retort that these are theoretical
considerations which have little influence on ordinary life. But even
if we prefer to evade such questions, they still remain as
disharmonies which work right into the depths of our unconscious soul
life. They lead to the anxious question: What is the point of our
moral impulses, what is the point of our religious ideals, if the
whole of earth evolution is doomed to destruction?

The way
this question is put shows what I am getting at. For all our moral
impulses and all our religious ideals would benothing but an immense
fraud perpetrated on mankind, they would be a terrible illusion, if
they were destined to be buried in the cemetery of the earth.
Eloquent examples already exist of the terrible effect of such soul
moods brought about by purely scientific knowledge, but we are often
not properly conscious of them. So the anxious question lives on in
human hearts. Asking it from the point of view of natural science we
have to say: We human beings grew out of nature and our moral ideals
rose up in us; but they will perish with the earth. These moral
ideals will perish in natural science. Natural science does not allow
us to concede that our ideals have an independent, actual, reality.
And even though this is no more than a theory, it nevertheless weighs
heavily on the human soul.

This
fatalistic world view is based, in the final analysis, on faith in
the imperishability of material forces. But anyone trying to topple
this dogma is considered mad. If this dogma were true, there would be
no escape for moral ideals; they would simply be a picture of
something that human beings have thought up and figured out. There
would be no escape for these ideals if spiritual research could not
find the means to give back to people a super-sensible content for
their consciousness. This is relevant today. And in this relevant
matter we are living at an important turning-point of evolution.
Those of you who know me are aware that I do not like saying such a
thing, because any moment in time can be called a turning-point. We
have to consider in what respect a certain moment is a
turning-point.

Let us
consider where the knowledge given by natural science can lead us.
Look first at the human being in his external manifestation living in
the physical, sense-perceptible world. If we do this in an absolute
sense, we see no more than a corpse. If we leave everything aside
except the physical, sense-perceptible being and if we allow only
chemical and physical laws to work on this being, then, by following
only the external laws of nature, the human being begins to
disintegrate, to dissolve. The forces we recognize with ordinary
knowledge destroy the human being.

This
alone is enough to refute the materialistic world view. If we say
that the external forces destroy the human being, this must mean that
from birth onwards people have been gathering forces which resist
this destruction. As it dissolves, the corpse is absorbed into the
world which we perceive with our senses. It is amalgamated into the
sense-perceptible world by the death forces of chemical and physical
laws. But what takes place at death inwardly at the level of the soul
cannot be perceived by external sense-perception. These inward
processes of soul can only be experienced by direct vision in the
realm where higher knowledge has its source. This vision shows that
outside the body the inward soul element is united with the spirit,
with all the spiritual forces that stream through the world, giving
it strength. The soul which unites with the spirit after death is
then bound up in the spirit in the super-sensible world.

This is a
fact which takes its place beside the fact of the corpse. In life the
physical body was filled by the soul; in death it unites with the
forces of nature. Anthroposophy leads us to a fact of life which is
diametrically opposed to the fact of death. The merely theoretical
statement of the eternal life of man can never be satisfying. But
Anthroposophy introduces the fact that the soul unites with the
spirit. The knowledge of natural science, on the other hand, leads
only to the fact of death.

The
higher sources of knowledge given by spiritual science lead us to
what is revealed to the spiritual seeker in Imagination, Inspiration
and Intuition. These stages of knowledge are described in my book
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds[ Note 1]
and also in
Occult Science.
In the first instance you will find that here
are descriptions of stages of knowledge. However, more is given to
the spiritual seeker than mere stages of knowledge. Just as
natural-scientific knowledge is not just knowledge but also possesses
other sides and aspects, so it is with higher knowledge.

Today I
shall consider with you something that goes beyond Imagination,
Inspiration and Intuition as stages of knowledge, something that I
discussed, for instance, in the Vienna lecture cycle of 1914
[ Note 2]
about life after death, but now from a somewhat
different point of view. The part of the human being that lives here
on earth is a corpse which is united with external physical nature.
And just as he is united with the mineral forces below, so is he also
united with the higher hierarchies above. Just as in the corpse he
grows together with the mineral forces, so above he slowly grows
together with, and enters into, the hierarchies. Sometimes people say
that they might as well wait until they die to find out what happens
then. And they might as well wait to grow together with the
hierarchies. This is all very well, but it is not actually the point.
It is very important for the human being to grow into the hierarchies
in the right way, for we have to admit that to start with he stands
in the world in a manner which allows him no inkling of his
relationships with the higher hierarchies. Much depends on our
becoming aware of these relationships.

The first
hierarchy with whom human beings have a relationship we may call the
world of the angels. But those who do not recognize the spiritual
world — for whatever reason — cannot establish a
relationship with the world of the angels, any more than someone who
lacks physical sense organs can establish a relationship with the
physical world. Angels are the beings next above man, closest to man,
yet under certain circumstances we cannot approach them. Only by
endeavouring to make a picture of the angel world while we are here
on earth can we prepare to form relationships with it. The portal of
death leads to the world of the angels if human beings can become
conscious after death of what is confronting them.

The
second group of higher beings is that of the folk spirits, or
archangels. Angels are not folk spirits. Real folk spirits have no
individual links with human beings, as is the case with angels. Folk
spirits are related to communities and groups of human beings. Even
natural science sometimes speaks of the national spirit, but this
does not denote an actual being, let alone a spiritual one. From
higher knowledge the spiritual seeker knows that folk spirits are
real spiritual beings whose position is one step above that of the
angels. The human being can grow into this hierarchy, too. But if our
inner spiritual experience is not intense enough, our angel cannot
lead us with our consciousness to the folk spirit. But since we have
to be led to the folk spirit, this happens unconsciously by means of
the laws of karma. Either we grow into the folk spirit consciously
and with love, or we are forcibly led into the sphere of the folk
spirits. When, after death, the moment is reached at which we turn to
descend once more to the sense-perceptible world for a new
incarnation, then it makes a great difference, as our soul is led
down, whether we have consciously united in love with the folk
spirit, or whether, unaware of what is going on, this takes place
forcibly, under coercion.

This
finds expression in a spiritual, a soul, fact. We can be born into a
nation because we are related by coercion to that folk spirit, or
because we are related by inner love. Those who are able to perceive
such things find it outstandingly characteristic of our time that a
great many people today lack a sufficiently loving relationship to
their folk spirit. This statement hints at the cause for what today
brings about disorder among nations. The conflict prevailing among
nations today stems from the fact that many people are born with
little love for their folk spirit and therefore find themselves in a
forced relationship to it. The love which leads us to a particular
folk spirit can never bring about a conflict with other nations. We
must do everything we can to help people regain a love-filled
relationship with their folk spirits. This is most urgent.

As we
stand here in life, we have Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition as
stages of knowledge which can lead to real vision in the spiritual
and soul realm. But in the realm of spirit and soul, when our soul is
to return once more to the physical world, Imagination, Inspiration
and Intuition are facts governing events, they are facts of action.
There our soul stands in a relationship with whatever it is that it
has to achieve out of the cosmos. If we are to manage our life
properly it must grant us conditions which make the achievement of
its aims as nearly feasible as possible. Thus the discarnate,
spiritual human being works through Imagination, Inspiration and
Intuition towards his reincarnation in the physical world, while the
incarnated, sense-bound human being can gain through Imagination,
Inspiration and Intuition a vision of the world of soul and
spirit.

Natural-scientific knowledge is not in a position to recognize the
profoundest secrets of life. Such knowledge starts, for instance,
with the consideration of a chemical compound. Proceeding to the
consideration of a more complicated chemical compound, and so on, it
arrives in the end at the living cell, which it regards as nothing
more than a particularly elaborate chemical compound. Spiritual
science shows that externally the cell is indeed a particularly
elaborate chemical structure; but when the living cell, the germ of a
new life, arises in the mother's womb in such an elaborate fashion,
the chemical laws are reversed and become chaotic. In the germ of the
embryo in the mother's womb, in the germ of life, the chemical laws
are suspended, reversed, and in the realm of nature this means chaos.
Because the germ is chaos, the cosmos can work into it.

Between
death and a new birth the human being has an inkling of this. In the
first step on the way to a new incarnation Imagination is realized
and leads towards reincarnation. In the second stage Inspiration is
realized, and this is a far clearer consciousness than our brain
consciousness, for Inspiration is a cosmic force. A part of this
cosmic force is breathed in, as it were, and streams towards the
bodily nature without coming fully to consciousness, rather as is the
case with the will. We are unaware of how our will moves our hand,
yet our hand moves in the manner required. The spiritual human being
approaching incarnation through realized Inspiration stands in
relation to this realized Inspiration as does the incarnated human
being to the air. When we think about our physical body in the
ordinary way, we imagine it to consist of muscles, nerves, vessels,
bones. We imagine the same of a corpse. The airy part of our organism
we assume to be outside it rather than within. Although we know that
we cannot live without air, we still do not consider it as so
intimately a part of ourselves as, say, our skeleton. Yet it is a
part of our organism. The air as it is outside us, and at the next
moment within, only to be outside again at the next, is a part of our
organism. It lives rhythmically in us. In a far more extended rhythm
we live with the element of soul and spirit. Just as we breathe air
in and out, so we also breathe the element of soul and spirit in and
out, though for the most part this takes place unconsciously.
Physically, too, part of what happens through breathing takes place
unconsciously. When the human being consisting of soul and spirit
breathes in realized Inspiration, he takes a picture into his soul.
He takes it into the dampened down part of his consciousness. And
what he takes in is the world of moral and religious impulses. He
takes this in as his conscience.

The third
stage in the descent to a new incarnation is when the human being
makes the transition to what his parents give him. In doing this he
is enacting a realized Intuition. So you see that what can be
achieved, while incarnated, by way of three higher stages of
knowledge, is something that is accomplished as a real occurrence in
the realm of soul and spirit on the way to incarnation. Here on earth
we ascend to the spiritual world through Imagination, Inspiration and
Intuition. And on our return from the spiritual world to incarnation
we descend from the spiritual world through Imagination, Inspiration
and Intuition. This is the counter-image, in the spiritual world, of
the three higher stages of knowledge.

What does
this show us? It shows us that Anthroposophy is not merely knowledge
but something which is alive. Through Anthroposophy we strive for
higher knowledge in order to grasp the reality of the higher realms
of life and in order to fill our souls with the content of what lives
in the spiritual worlds. Those whose common sense has helped them to
understand what the spiritual seeker has to say, experience something
else as well. They can say to themselves that human beings in the
state of incarnation between birth and death are constantly
counteracting the death forces at work in their body. The forces of
death are forever present in the human body, but so are those forces
which counteract the forces of death. They are there. If we did not
bear the forces of death within us we should never have developed our
understanding for our physical environment.

One of
the most important facts given to us by higher knowledge is that our
forces of intellect are bound up with our forces of dying. Death is
in a way nothing but a summary of all the forces of dying which are
forever at work in us. But a moral ideal, which can intensify until
it becomes a religious ideal, lives in us in quite a different way.
It is said that certain natural forces exist which bring it about
that plants grow upwards; and these forces are taken to be quite
real. But when, on looking into the human being, people find there
the driving forces of moral and religious ideals, they are not
inclined to accept these as having any reality. Yet there they are,
working not only in every human being but also in the cultures of all
mankind. Higher knowledge teaches us that moral ideals live in man
through the burning up of matter. Matter is destroyed when a person
makes moral resolves. The breaking down of matter is the precondition
for the building up of moral ideals. What is crucial is the manner in
which a human being breaks down matter and the manner in which he can
build it up again. External research is still caught up in the
prejudice about the indestructibility of matter. But spiritual
science shows that man can break through external natural forces.
Once we are in possession of an anthroposophical world view we can
comfort ourselves in face of the idea of the death of the earth
through overheating. For it is this very destruction of matter which
ensures for the human being the possibility of building up his moral
personality.

If you
look deeply into your soul you will find something which consumes and
gnaws at the soul of modern man. This something, which consumes and
gnaws at the soul, is the fact that modern natural science excludes
the moral element from the realm of what is real. Anthroposophy shows
how human beings break through natural laws; how the moral element
destroys matter, which is then built up again as matter which can be
the bearer of a moral world order. All that is contained within the
confines of our skin is connected with the dying forces of matter.
But what the world builds up again — this has been forgotten by
the natural sciences.

In order
to discover new moral worlds we must proceed to the question of where
matter can be built up. Death is in us at every moment, but so is
resurrection. This is where we should look. This, out of the
anthroposophical world view, is the perspective we must place before
human souls, since the natural sciences have turned their attention
for far too long and far too one-sidedly to the forces of dying. It
is important to develop the courage to attend to what must be done in
order to build up new worlds.

I am
assuming that these suggestions will give encouragement and lead to
meditations on how to see more clearly what is felt and talked about
a great deal, but what ought also to be strongly willed.